Next-Gen Itanium: 32nm, 8-core Poulson

Next-Gen Itanium: 32nm, 8-core Poulson

The Itanium CPU is mostly used for the ultra high end and enterprise computing needs and it uses Intel's VLIW IA-64 architecture. Code named Poulson, Intel has literally up the ante by moving to 32nm process, adding up to four more cores, and tacking on more than one billion additional transistors.

Comparison of Itanium CPUs

Poulson

Tukwila

Core/Thread Count

Up to 8/16

Up to 4/8

Frequency

*TBA

Up to 1.73GHz

L3 Cache

Up to 32MB (*TBC)

Up to 24MB

Manufacturing Process

32nm

65nm

Transistor Count

3.1 billion

2.046 billion

Die Size

544mm^2 (*TBC)

699mm^2

*TBC = to be confirmed, *TBA= to be announced

The CPU also has a new feature called Intel Instruction Replay Technology, which adds a buffer for more quickly recovering from errors, allowing the chip to pick up from the last known good instruction instead of having to completely flush the pipeline. Those looking to upgrade will also be happy to hear that the upcoming IA-64 CPU is pin compatible with Tukwila.